Hold Me
by Ammanalien
Summary: Teyla and Lorne climbing trees?  A little whumping story.
1. Chapter 1

oOo

She comes to her senses... slowly.

She is wedged, lower body folded against a crease in the main trunk of the tree, upper body draped over a huge branch, its bark scratchy and musty smelling. Her leg hurts and she thinks she has scratched it during her fall. They were walking... returning to the stargate through a dense scrubland. The ground had crumbled... a hidden drop-off, and a ravine where ancient trees grew. She remembers a stumble, tearing pain and then.. blackness.

She hears sounds; scuffling, distant voices calling. She feels something warm touch her forehead, recognises it as a hand, and only then does she realise that there is someone with her.

He's unclipping the P-90 that's beneath her, carefully lifting the strap from around her neck. It's difficult... the side of her face is laying across the top of the branch, and the angle is awkward. But nevertheless, her head is brought up gently and the weapon's weight is gone.

Now he is dabbing at her cheek with something cool, and sunlight is cast warmly across her closed eyes, as one hand pushes back her hair. He wipes from her left ear across her cheek bone to the corner of her mouth, where she can taste the raw tang of blood. Something white and soft is held there then, and taped in place.

She squints lop sided, her eyes opening, and a face swims into focus.

It's the new officer from earth... a pilot, she thinks. His hair is not as dark as John's and it's shorter. They have spoken maybe once, and she does not remember his name.

It seems impossible, but he is suspended here in the treetops along with her. He shifts, turning away to rip open the ties on a pack, and the tree limbs move and shudder around her. The pain in her left leg is growing. It's high up on her thigh, and radiates down to her knee. He is lifting her head again, and she takes this opportunity to track her eyes back and down to look at her leg. In that brief moment she sees enough to understand the seriousness of her situation; she is not so much wedged into the tree as hanging from it. She has been spiked by a short stumpy branch and it has raked up along her outer thigh. The branch is still snagging the torn fabric, and she can see where the blood-darkened material has bunched, almost at her hip; she is being held up only by the thin fabric of her pants.

Before her head falls back, the officer pushes something beneath her cheek. It's black.. smells clean and feels cool; she thinks it may be a shirt.

"Easy now, ma'am. Don't move. Help's coming."

"Water?", she ventures, and in an instant a flask is at her lips and although much of it is spilled, she drinks deeply.

"What happened?", she whispers.

A wry smile is at his lips.

"You took a tumble, ma'am... I followed.", he says simply. Now she sees that his face and arms are scratched, in some places quite severely, and she sees the glitter of bright blood here and there.

He doesn't know her name, so she supplies it:

"I am Teyla... ", but she cannot continue past the weariness she feels.

A real smile now warms his features and he looks a little embarrassed as he answers, "Yes... I know..", then he looks at her with a steady gaze and adds with a polite nod, "I'm Lorne, ma'am... at your service", and the warm smile is back.

There's a sudden sharp pain at her hip, and she gasps, "No...!", because she knows what this is. The tree limb she is draped across is as big as a water barrel, and she feels her chest and arms slide slowly, inexorably around it, as her body slips lower, the weak fabric ripping further up her thigh.

She cannot help the look of panic she shoots at him.

She sees him move forward and one hand grabs at her jacket sleeve.

"You're slipping, but I'm gonna hold you, okay?", his voice betrays his concern, but is at the same time firmly confident and suddenly she is glad that he is with her.

"Trust me", and she is surprised to find that she does.

He's fumbling with something at his waist, working one-handed, and his face is hard. He's taking off his belt.

Suddenly he is very close, leaning his body across the giant branch. She feels his breath on her neck, and she shivers. His arms slide around her waist and he's trying, she realises, to tie her to the tree. She hears his noisy breath, crackling and halting in his throat, and then a curse escapes... the belt is too short.

The air is damp and cold around her head, and it's too thick to breathe. She thinks she has re-established a grip and that all will be well, until suddenly, with a wave of dizziness and nausea, everything slackens, and after a brief moment of weightlessness, she is falling again ...and this time she thinks she will find the earth.

Instead, though, she hears a cracking sound, and she is jerked back from her free fall, eyes flying open in alarm.

There is a breathless, "Hold on, ma'am...", and the creak and shudder of old wood.

She is dangling... by the front of her tac vest. It cuts into her face and neck painfully. She can see flesh... an arm, tanned and muscular, so close to the end of her nose she can smell it: warm skin, sweat, blood. One of her flailing hands finds a leafy tree limb and the fingers crawl over bark and greenery, and she manages to hook her elbow around. Now the branch is locked to her arm pit.

"I'm not letting go... ya hear?", his voice is tense, and has an edge of desperation to it.

"Just hold tight... "

As she hangs there, swaying, her ankles knocking against the swollen trunk of the great tree, she wonders if he means for her to hang on or if he was addressing himself.

One leg is cold; the other icy, and she imagines the blood from her wound is dripping from her boot and pattering softly to the forest floor.

She is empty, feels like a bloodless shell... only her face is warm, where it's pressed against the officer's arm. She moves her cheek against the smooth skin slowly, thinking that this may be the last comforting thing she will ever feel. She tries to speak, to tell this man that she is grateful... grateful that he tried, and that he should feel no responsibility for her death. But she is unable to push out the breath required from her lips.

She hears more voices, her father's is among them, telling her that there are better ways to die, and as she loses both consciousness and her grip on the branch, she silently agrees with him.

oOo

TBC and thanks for reading!

It's been a long time away from writing, at least it seems a long time, real life can do that to you! My other stories are pulling at me too, but this is just a quickie that came to me last night... hope you like it!


	2. Chapter 2

oOo

_Crap_...

Her shoulder suddenly relaxes, and the arm that was taking some of her weight, unravels from the branch, and he knows that this will hurt.

Stars pop and sparkle behind his eyeballs, as his damaged shoulder shrieks in agony. He's been unlucky; the angle was awkward when he made that desperate grab. The violent pull was more than his shoulder joint could take; but somehow he manages to hold on. Her arm falls with a _thwack_, and slaps against her side, making her whole body swing. Her head is tipped back, face almost as white as the dressing upon her cheek. She has fainted, he realises, from exhaustion, shock, blood loss or a combination of any of them.

Her body twists slowly now, and so, his arm twists too, again increasing the pain of what feels so much like a dislocation.

More worrying to him, though, is the certainty that at some point he will let her fall. If the others don't make it in time, if his fingers simply stop working, and she slips silently from his grasp.

She is by no means a heavy woman, but the stress of holding her, without respite and in the face of his own injury, is rapidly taking its toll.

It's hard to breathe. He launched himself at the massive branch that she was on only moments before, and now he is stretched out across it. His head is way down, left hand behind him, awkwardly twisted to grasp a knotty broken bough. His right hand is fisted into the front of Teyla's vest, fingers locked tightly, and muscles burning.

He tells himself that he can stay like this forever if he has to, he can take the pain, but he knows that it'll be his fingers that will give out in the end.

Then he hears voices, not far away... and a rustling... someone is right at his side, he can see the shadow and feel the wood give. He twists his neck and there is Major Sheppard, in a harness, away to his left.

"Almost home, soldier", says his commanding officer evenly, as if he does this kind of thing every day, and he is already whizzing expertly down the rope towards the helpless woman.

He lets his eyes close, now concentrating solely on keeping still and staying connected to his burden. Blood is beating loudly in his head.

Minutes pass and he holds on, expecting any moment for others to take over. He is still terrified though, when the weight beneath his fingers shifts and seems to increase. His eyes fly open, neck twisting again, and he sees an incredible sight.

The branches around him are full of people, all intently looking at him. He relaxes bulging neck muscles and lets his head dangle. He sees that many pairs of hands hold Teyla, along with a solid looking rope harness.

"Let go now, Major", orders a heavily accented voice. It's the CMO, Beckett, and the doctor gently begins un-folding his locked and spasming fingers, a painful process, for which the medic looks suitably apologetic.

In a blur of quick movement, Teyla is smoothly lifted away.

"We've got you, son. Don't worry."

"I'm alright...", he says, wondering if he really is.

"Okay, lad, I don't want you moving that arm yet... it's displaced. Y'understand, now?"

He nods, and it's all he is capable of. Since Teyla has gone, his pain has doubled, even his chest is tight and burning.

He still has his arm outstretched beneath him and he feels vaguely ridiculous as he is slowly brought up and righted by several pairs of hands.

A needle stings in his thigh and surprises him. But as his arm is supported and moved, he is grateful for the morphine. Still, he bites through his lip as Beckett slowly folds his elbow towards his chest and his shoulder follows, the joint feeling like it's full of broken glass.

All of a sudden, he wonders why the doctor is here with him.

"W-what 'bout Teyla?", he asks, the medication making him slur the words.

"Dr Cole is with her, and she's in good hands."

He sees Beckett pull off surgical gloves, and hand them away to someone on the right.

"Now, are you ready to go?", the doctor asks.

He looks down and is surprised to see that he has been strung up in a harness already, his injured arm swathed in white bandages and lashed to his chest. Someone has stuck an IV port in the crook of his elbow; idly, he wonders why. When he realises that he is to be carried out of there like an invalid, he looks up at Beckett.

But it seems that the Scottish doctor has read his mind, because he answers his unspoken question, with a hint of a knowing smile.

"I know you could make it, son. But I'm not goin' to let ye. If it makes you feel any better, consider it an order."

oOo

"Major Lorne?"

He had been coming from the treatment room in the corner of the infirmary. It was the day after their rescue, and his muscles were a strung out mess. He was hobbling around like an old man, and was planning on a hot shower and bed. A scan had confirmed his shoulder was dislocated, and after an anaesthetic and a few hours of rest, he'd been allowed to leave with an arm sling and a bottle of painkillers. Some of his worst cuts, though, needed daily dressing changes and today, having had this done by one of Carson's staff, he'd been almost at the door, when a familiar voice called out.

Teyla was in a bed, the only occupant of the main patient area. She looked tired; there were tiny butterfly strips across her cheek.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, ma'am. I know you had visitors... ", he began, voice quiet. He had heard the laughter earlier as he was having his wounds dressed; Sheppard, Ford and McKay had all paid their team mate a visit. There had been ice-cream.

"That is alright, Major. You see, I wanted to speak with you..."

He could see what was coming and felt embarassment rise; he'd been doing his job, no need to thank him.

"Ma'am.. you don't need-"

But the Athosian interrupted him.

"Major Sheppard told me that you did not fall down, as I did..."

His heart almost stopped. He blinked and swallowed. _What?_

She went on, her gaze level, her expression neutral. "You saw me fall, tried to catch me and when you could not do that... you jumped"

Well, that _was_ the way it happened and he couldn't deny it. It wasn't a result of conscious thought, he just couldn't stop himself from following, somehow knowing she would need him; and he would have done it for anyone.

A scratch on his neck began to itch for some reason and he rubbed at it absently as he tried to think of some kind of reply.

But now it was Teyla's turn to look uncomfortable. Her eyes flicked down to study the bed cover.

"It was foolish. You could have been killed.", she admonished, quietly.

"I wasn't", he said quickly, wanting to add that it had certainly been worth the risk.

"It was still foolish... ", she said with a frown, but when she saw his desolate expression her face softened, and she went on with a sigh, "... but I do thank you for it. As an Athosian, I now have a life debt. It will only be paid when I can save _your_ life, Major Lorne."

"Oh...", he said, not knowing what to say to that.

"But, until then, I do have one request."

He took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eyes, "Anything, ma'am"

"That you call me by my name, as friends do... agreed?"

"Agreed... _Teyla_... "

Yup, it had certainly been worth the risk.

The End

oOo

Thanks for reading! As 'Athosion Warrior' said in her review, I don't think there's a romantic future for Lorne and Teyla in the show, but they are real good fun to write! xxx

(By the way, "Opening the Door to Strangers" by Martha Wilson, is a great Teyla h/c story, and I hope the author doesn't mind me recommending it to you.)


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